Saturday

an act of faith in time itself

I have spent a lifetime learning to believe in things that can never burn down. I can invest my heart's desire and the work of my hands in things that will outlive me. Although it grieves me that houses are burning, I have fallen in love with a river that runs through a desert, a rain forest at the edge of night, the right of a species to persist in its own wild place, and the words I might assemble to tell their stories. I've fallen in love with freedom regardless, and the entitlement of a woman to get a move on, equipped with boots that fit and opinions that might matter. The treasures I carry closest to my heart are things I can't own: the curve of a five-year-old's forehead in profile, and the vulnerable expectation in the hand that reaches for mine as we cross the street...

I can clear the brush from a neglected part of the garden, working slowly until it comes to me that here is one small place I can make right for my family. I can plant something as an act of faith in itself, a vow that we will, sure enough, have a fall and a winter this year, to be followed again by spring. This is not an end in itself, but a beginning...Small change, small wonders--these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life. It's a workable economy.